A New Vision for the Ocean

The document highlights the unprecedented pressures on global oceans from pollution, overfishing, and climate change, asserting that existing 20th-century governance frameworks are insufficient for 21st-century economic growth. It proposes a 'New Vision for the Ocean' centered on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, featuring an Ocean Data Alliance to build an open-source integration platform for ocean data by 2020 and an Ocean Data Fund to incentivize data collection. The initiative aims to improve traceability—starting with tuna—and provide capacity-building support for small island states to manage their marine resources.

• Human activities are placing unprecedented pressure on oceans through pollution, overfishing, and climate change. Approximately 80% of ocean pollution originates from land sources, including industrial and agricultural run-off and plastics. The document warns that current pollution rates could lead to more plastic by weight than fish in the oceans by 2050.
• Overfishing and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing are causing rapid declines in fish stocks. The FAO estimated in 2016 that nearly one-third of global fish stocks are overfished. IUU fishing is estimated to remove $24 billion in annual revenue from nations, representing about 20% of the $120 billion global seafood market.
• Climate change is causing rising ocean temperatures and acidification, which disrupt marine ecosystems and weather patterns. The average sea surface temperature has been consistently higher over the last three decades than at any time since 1880. This has led to severe events such as the 2016 coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, where nearly 70% of a 700-kilometre northern stretch lost shallow-water corals.
• Existing ocean governance architectures, such as the 1982 UN Law of the Seas, are deemed insufficient to handle the systemic stress caused by the 21st-century global economy. The growth of emerging economies and the need to increase global food demand by 60% between 2006 and 2050 are creating exponential pressures on coastal mega-cities and marine resources.
• The World Economic Forum proposes the 'Ocean Data Alliance' to develop an open-source integration platform (Open API) for all ocean-related data by 2020. This platform would integrate data from satellites, drones, and sensors to empower innovation and eradicate illegal fishing by ensuring full traceability, using tuna as the first use-case.
• To support the data platform, the report suggests an 'Ocean Data Fund' to provide payment guarantees to data service providers. This fund would incentivize the regular surveying of the entire ocean and invest in cloud-based storage and analytical capabilities to transform raw data into industry-standard attributes.
• The proposed framework emphasizes support for small island states to ensure they benefit from these technological advances. The alliance intends to work with governments in Fiji, Kiribati, Mauritius, and Grenada to co-design traceability products and potentially host the servers and infrastructure for global ocean data.

APA

Degnarain, N., Stone, G. S., & Waughray, D. (2017). A New Vision for the Ocean. World Economic Forum. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/Media/VfOceanDA.pdf

Chicago

Degnarain, Nishan, Gregory S. Stone, and Dominic Waughray. A New Vision for the Ocean. World Economic Forum, 2017. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/Media/VfOceanDA.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Degnarain |first1=Nishan |last2=Stone |first2=Gregory S. |last3=Waughray |first3=Dominic |title=A New Vision for the Ocean |publisher=World Economic Forum |date=June 2017 |url=http://www3.weforum.org/docs/Media/VfOceanDA.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{degnarain2017new, author = {Degnarain, Nishan and Stone, Gregory S. and Waughray, Dominic}, title = {{A New Vision for the Ocean}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2017}, month = jun, url = {http://www3.weforum.org/docs/Media/VfOceanDA.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }